Creating work that goes viral is something that many internet marketers work on over the course of their entire careers. The reason for that quest is that having a viral campaign can change the face of your business in a matter of days. Unfortunately there is no way to predict what work will go viral and what work will simply be passed over. There is good news though, there are certain principles you can incorporate into your business that will increase your odds of producing viral content. It’s possible you may see these and think they’re too common sense, but you really never know what may set you apart from all the others.
Make sure your work is visible. You have to do more than just creating work. Its existence must be known by other people. A really great way to accomplish this is to submit your work to social bookmarking sites. Submit your work to free services like Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon. These sites are always visited by internet users that are looking for the next big headline. It only takes a few of these internet users to click on your links in order for you to go from nonexistent to very popular. Make sure that people can find you. If people have to look for your work, it will never go viral.
Forget about advertising your products. Readers and viewers can spot an advertisement from miles away. You can safely bet you may never see sales content, or copy, produce a viral effect. Your product might become incredibly popular for a while but that is usually because that product is a part of a larger story.
Try sharing about your interests, or self, rather than pushing products/services onto people. If you’re really trying to do something viral, you’ll get ignored if people think you’re selling. Just leave the selling to all your marketing devices on your website.
Be an active participant in the online community. Leave interesting and intelligent comments on blogs within your market, or you can join forums. Discover what the bigger picture is within your market, and try to become a part of it. People will take notice of you if your contributions are significant and helpful. You’ll find that most blogs will let you link back to your blog/site through their comment forms and also with signature files in forums. If you always leave positive, helpful comments your chances of becoming known or popularity will only get better.
This is not any kind of an exact science, though. It’s impossible to say with any degree of accuracy what will have a viral effect, and what will not. But you know, there’s so much you can do to create interesting content on relevant topics. But being lazy and only hoping won’t do a thing for you. This is really not hard work, and it will only increase your chances of making something viral happen. Never know – your results could be virally amazing.